Moments after U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was named by Mitt Romney to be his vice-presidential candidate, CNN posted a picture of Ryan dressed in camouflage and posing with a huge, antlered whitetail deer he arrowed with his bow.

After seeing what anti-hunting groups did to California Fish and Game commissioner Dan Richards after he posed with a mountain lion he killed on a legal hunt in Idaho, I wondered if there would be a similar overreaction by those groups and others to Ryan’s hunting photo.

Of course, the two pictures struck totally different messages.

Richards shot a mountain lion legally in Idaho. The cougar is a protected species in California. But even though Richards’ hunt was legal and had nothing to do with California’s whacked-out, voter-passed or Legislature-imposed fish and wildlife laws, the anti-hunting groups portrayed it as an in-your-face slap against California’s holier-than-thou model of protectionism and preservation. Richards never said that’s what he intended. But those of us who have watched Richards over the years weren’t surprised by the photo or the uproar.

In Congressman Ryan’s case, the photo of the politician-hunter with his buck accompanied an insightful interview he did with Huntsville’s Alan Clemons, southeast managing editor of Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine. Just like Richards, Ryan was proud of his hunt and not afraid to distribute the photo.

Clemons’ interview revealed that Ryan is an avid hunter who started hunting at 12 in Wisconsin. Ryan detailed his background in hunting, his passion for it and his love of sharing it with his children.

“We have some two-man ladder stands, and (the children) really enjoy going with me,” Ryan told Clemons. “I bought our daughter a Winchester model 70 in .243 for Christmas so she can start hunting with me. Wisconsin lowered the hunting age, and she’s excited. The kids love hunting and being with me in the stand. We have a great time.”

How refreshing it is to hear a man who could be second in command in our country speak so openly about a tradition that is under constant attack, particularly here in California. Hunting numbers are up in many areas of the country, but not here.

A recent survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service showed there are more than 13.7 million hunters 16 and older in the U.S., and more young women and older women are getting into hunting and shooting sports. In California we struggle to sell 300,000 hunting licenses in a state with nearly 40 million people.

One of the problems hunters and fishermen have here in the Golden State and in many areas of the country is that there aren’t enough people with the political juice to understand fish and game issues and make a difference.

In his interview with Clemons, Ryan identified the biggest battles hunters have when he said “rights have been the biggest challenges – access, things like ATV access for recovering game, other issues.”

It’s those “other issues” that we deal with in California. They include a Legislature that can be bought off by the Humane Society of the U.S. to pass a ban on the use of hunting bears and bobcats with dogs; a soft Fish and Game Department that can be infiltrated, bought off with wine and cheese and then sign off on shutting down large areas of ocean to fishing and land to hunting; a populace that can pass a mountain lion protection proposition that spoon feeds millions and millions of dollars through the Wildlife Conservation Fund to so-called “conservation groups” that do little for fish and wildlife, and even less for hunters and fishermen.

Will someone like Ryan, an avid archery hunter, in the second-highest seat in the land make a difference? It’s hard to say because half of the presidents, including both George H. and George W. Bush, in the last 50 years have been avid hunters. That hasn’t helped California’s hunters a lick.